need some help for a friend of mine. He wants to get a AMD mobo/cpu from Micro Center. Which one should he get. He will be using it mostly for surfing the net and a little video editing of some off-road riding he does and watching movies. he's looking to spend about $200-$250, the lower the better.Edited by GOMNADZ - 4/28/11 at 8:29pm

For what he wants...an x4 965 bundle should be sufficient. I've built a 840 system with the Asus M7A84TD Evo board. It's a really nice motherboard, though you might not need it provided your budget and the features your buddy needs.

Or you could opt for one of the hexacore bundles. Depending on how CPU-intensive his video editing is. In other words comparing Adobe visual compositing versus homemade movies in Pinnacle or the like.

Any CPU on that list will suffice for internet and HD videoEdited by kiwiasian - 4/28/11 at 8:33pm

For what he wants...an x4 965 bundle should be sufficient. I've built a 840 system with the Asus M7A84TD Evo board. It's a really nice motherboard, though you might not need it provided your budget and the features your buddy needs.

Or you could opt for one of the hexacore bundles. Depending on how CPU-intensive his video editing is. In other words comparing Adobe visual compositing versus homemade movies in Pinnacle or the like.

Any CPU on that list will suffice for internet and HD video

I agree with this guy^ Any Quad or hexacore will suit him.

As for UsedPaperClip's comment, if he had a higher budget, I would definitely wait. But seeing that he has only $250, I would go ahead and buy the Quad or the hexacore. And if all he is doing is web surfing, minor editing, and movies; I don't believe that Bulldozer would be quite worth the money for him.

it wont be any major/intensive video edition, mostly homemade movies. I was looking at the 955 but not sure on which MB to get. I will tell him about the new AMD/bulldozers coming out but from talking to him yesterday, he's not really interested in the new technology since he is using Intel Pentium right now and it's been giving him some issues. He will also be using a old video card (nvidia 8400) and a cheap 400w PSU and I will prob buy him a new HD for his bday gift.

it wont be any major/intensive video edition, mostly homemade movies. I was looking at the 955 but not sure on which MB to get. I will tell him about the new AMD/bulldozers coming out but from talking to him yesterday, he's not really interested in the new technology since he is using Intel Pentium right now and it's been giving him some issues. He will also be using a old video card (nvidia 8400) and a cheap 400w PSU and I will prob buy him a new HD for his bday gift.

I feel like his GPU will bottleneck his system. He is going to have a great CPU but a GPU that won't keep up.

I too have a 955 and I have had no problems with it. Although I don't do any overclocking so I suppose I haven't really tested its capabilities.